Stalking 101
by muppetmadness
Summary: In the four weeks of Ianto's suspension after the events of Cyberwoman, Jack visits Ianto. Will he discover that the things he learns about Ianto in these weeks are things he would rather have remained secret and are some truths better left hidden?


**Disclaimer: Not mine, belongs to the beeb blah blah. You get the picture :P.**

Stalking 101

Ianto was packing his suitcase when he heard the knock at his door. It slightly startled him because, to be honest, no one ever really visited him at his apartment. While his family knew where he lived they never visited his place, he hadn't told any of his old friends he was back or been able to make new ones and the Torchwood team was just ever-so-slightly annoyed at him.

Moving to the door, he looked through the little eyehole and raised his eyebrows on seeing who was outside. Not someone he would have ever expected to see at his door. Unlocking the door –he had a lot of locks so it took some time- Ianto opened the door to his employer. Jack stood outside the door in his classic RAF greatcoat, blue shirt, black trousers and braces outfit, looking slightly disgruntled when he looked Ianto up and down and saw that he looked normal (if in jeans and a t-shirt rather than a suit).

"Ianto?" jack asked hesitantly.

"Come in sir, I was just packing," Ianto said, moving back into his sitting room to his suitcase and leaving Jack out in the hall.

"Packing to go where?" Jack enquired warily. "You're not running off on us now, are you Ianto?"

"And deprive you of the chance to Retcon me yourself? Never. I'm just going to stay at my sister's for a week or two. The lease on this place is running out and I haven't really had a chance to visit my sister for a long time. Torchwood doesn't exactly give many opportunities for holidays."

Jack barked out a laugh at that, relaxing slightly. "Well that sure as hell is true. I can't remember the last time I had a holiday." He paused. "I didn't realise that you had a sister."

"_That_ is because I did not put it into my file from Torchwood One and you never asked. Although really, I don't think you had that good a look at it before hiring me anyway. You probably just asked Tosh to look into it."

"How did you guess?" Jack asked, smiling at Ianto.

"I know quite a lot about you, sire. That you're lazy is only the tip of the iceberg."

Jack gasped in outrage. "I am not lazy!"

"Yeah, you really are. Especially when it comes to paperwork."

The two men laughed at that before Ianto looked serious again.

"Why are you here Jack? Not that I don't appreciate the company."

Jack looked slightly disbelieving at that. "I highly doubt that you _really_ want to see me that much after everything that I did. Are you okay Ianto? You seem fine but..." he trailed off.

"I compartmentalise."

"Neat trick."

"It comes in useful at times."

"It's not very good for you; you need to deal with your pain. After all, I don't want you breaking down on me one day at work when it all gets too much for you."

"I can't just shoot myself in the head like you can Jack," Ianto said, a touch of spite in his cold voice. "I won't come back. I will deal with my emotions when I am with my family, which people I can trust. I don't have that here."

Jack looked stung at Ianto's harsh and cold words, so different from what he was used to hearing from the Welshman. Earlier, Jack had been saying that Ianto was angry and didn't know what he was saying when he called Jack a monster but now he clearly did.

"I guess you do know me more than I thought."

"I guess I do."

There was a pause and Jack started to feel more and more uncomfortable as the tense silence progressed.

"Well," Jack said at last, trying desperately to ignore the awkwardness, "if you ever want to learn even more about me I'm up for it."

"I'm sure you would be but why I would I want to? You did just shoot my girlfriend and threaten to kill me."

Jack grinned slightly, "That's happened to me loads of times. I got over it."

"For some reason I don't doubt that."

"Hey!"

"Jack, could you please just leave. I have things to do, my sister is expecting me."

Jack nodded and turned to leave. On reaching the door he glanced back at Ianto. "Just be careful, OK? I want you in piece when you come back to work and I don't just mean physically."

-JIJIJI-

Ianto pulled up to his sister's house in St Mellon's and sighed with relief. He had been suppressing everything that he felt since Canary Wharf, his emotions only coming out when he was tired or desperate. Like that morning when he had taken Jack a coffee for the first time after staying up all night chasing Weevils with him and then later looking after Lisa. He hadn't meant to mention his memories of Canary Wharf, as hazy as they were, but somehow they had just come out.

Ianto had always been close to his sister, although at first it did not seem as though they had much in common. Aderyn had always been popular, loud and easy-going. She was the sort of person who became friends with someone after talking to them for ten minutes. Ten minutes later she would know almost everything about their life.

Despite the obvious differences in personality, Ianto and Aderyn had been best friends during their teenage years. Aderyn was a year older than Ianto and had been 16 when their mother was sent to Providence Park for Post Natal Depression after she had given birth to Steven. Their father was completely lost without their mother. Not only had she always looked after the kids (and now there was a new baby in addition to Ianto and Aderyn) but she had worked in his shop as his assistant. They didn't have enough money for their father to get a new assistant and pay to keep their mother in Providence Park so Ianto had come up with a plan.

Ianto was in charge of looking after his father at the shop. Every day after school and on the weekend Ianto would go with his father to work at his tailoring shop. Aderyn had been in charge of looking after the baby and things at home when Ianto was working with their father but Ianto had always been happy to look after Steven the rest of the time when Aderyn had dates or wanted to go out with her friends.

Surprisingly, there was no resentment between the two siblings when it came to how their 'chores' had been dealt out. Aderyn had always loved babies and knew as well as Ianto did that their father was an extremely hard taskmaster. Ianto had always loved observing people and a shop was undoubtedly the best place to do that. Moreover, Ianto and his dad had always been very close. The tailoring shop was where Ianto learnt the most important lessons in his life (not including how to shoot which was definitely important when working at Torchwood); he had learnt how to enter a room without being noticed, the importance and effect of appearance and, although his father hopefully never knew, a lot about sex.

After leaving school Ianto had decided that he needed a change. While life at his father's tailors was always interesting it had grown predictable. Ianto had never been one to complain about things for no reason but he knew that what he needed was challenge. Throughout his school life he had always found things easy to understand. Although his grades and teacher reports didn't show it, Ianto was one of the smartest children in his class; he just had never had the chance to excel. Lessons had bored him and, tired as he was from spending all his time looking after Steven or working, he had found it difficult to concentrate on what the teachers were trying desperately to teach him. The information had gone in (he did after all have an eidetic memory); he just hadn't cared enough about it to worry over whether the answers he put down in class and on exams were correct.

Seeking out challenge for his type of mind was not the easiest thing to do in a shop that he had worked in for three years, one he knew as well as the back of his hand. In fact, seeking out challenge in Cardiff without the knowledge that there was a rift in time and space passing straight through it spitting out aliens and alien technology was rather difficult. No disrespect meant to Ianto's hometown.

It was for that reason that Ianto had, after saving up enough money at his father's shop, started travelling around the country drifting between different jobs. Each job he chose had a particular challenge, whether it seemed obvious to the random observer or not. Knowing what he now knew it seemed obvious enough to Ianto that his searching had finally led him to Torchwood inadvertently. Where better to challenge himself than as a Junior Researcher at Torchwood London.

Aderyn had held down the fort back home through Ianto's wanderings. When their father retired she inherited the shop and, with both their father's and Ianto's consent, she turned it into a children's clothes and books store, once again displaying her love for children. She married the boy next door, a handsome and kind man who had always adored her despite her never noticing him during her teenage years and now had two children, who Ianto was the proud uncle to. They never lost touch, each being there for each other through every triumph and every earth-shattering fall. There was no one that Ianto had ever felt closer to or trusted more than his big sister so it only made sense that when his world fell apart in way that was hundreds of times worse than anything that had ever happened before to either of them, even their mother's institutionalization, he went to her for guidance and a release from what seemed to him to be a bone crushing weight.

It was with lead-weighted steps that Ianto walked up to the painted blue door with the familiar bronze number 25 on it. His knock was soft and short, as though he didn't have the energy for anything more substantial or firm. Despite this the door opened immediately and Ianto felt instantly better on seeing his sister. As Gwion and Dafydd ran to hug him around the legs and pull him into their home with shouts of 'Uncle Ianto!', his sister stood there, an oasis in the desert, protection from the harsh winds and the scorching sun that threatened to tear flesh from bone and leave nothing but a dried out husk of Ianto's remains.

Once the children had been sufficiently entertained (Ianto found gifts of toys always helped to guarantee some adult time) and sent off to play outside with their friends, it was time for Ianto to tell his sister what had happened. Aderyn already knew about Torchwood from when Ianto worked at Torchwood One and had met Lisa several times so Ianto felt no need to censor his story. He told Aderyn everything from what happened during the battle of Canary Wharf to Lisa's final death and the start of his suspension. No feeling went unspoken of, no thought unheard. Ianto even told her the thoughts Ianto had been having of Jack once he had started working for him and how guilty he had always felt about them. To him, it was like he was cheating on Lisa, if only in his thoughts. Ianto would have never dared to tell anyone else these things but this was his sister and she had inherited their Great-Aunt's uncanny knack for knowing things she shouldn't know.

At the end of Ianto's account tears were streaking down both of their faces. Aderyn pulled Ianto into her arms and he curled up there with her on her green leather living room sofa, being rocked gently as he cried.

"It's alright now Ianto," Aderyn whispered into his ear. "I'm here. You don't have to feel guilty anymore."

-JIJIJI-

Ianto threw himself into life with his family with all the vigour he had searched for Lisa's cure with. He had always found that the two best cures for depression are activity and laughter and with the twins around there was plenty of both.

The weekend after Ianto's arrival at his sister's he took Dafydd and Gwion to Adventure Kingdom while their parents were at work (weekends were the shop's busiest times). Adventure Kingdom was essentially a giant playground for kids. It was one of those centres that can be found in most cities in Britain where children could play around in what looked like a giant 3D spider's web while the adults watched, secure in the knowledge that they were safe, having fun and doing something inexpensive that wouldn't result in them breaking something or having to have mud washed off them.

Dafydd and Gwion were energetic children, possessing that boundless energy that so many 6-year-olds have to the chagrin of their parents. Adventure Kingdom was one of their favourite places and whenever Ianto saw them he would try to take them there as a treat. The boys clambered up rope nets, into pits filled with brightly coloured plastic balls and through yellow corrugated metal tubes. Meeting friends and generally doing the sorts of things that kids like to do – for them this place was heaven.

Strange as it was, Ianto enjoyed going there too. He loved to see the twins laugh and have fun and the little restaurant was the perfect place to think. In the mirthful atmosphere it was difficult to be depressed and much easier to see life's positives.

There was, however, one thing that Ianto did not want to be able to see. Captain Jack Harkness was striding across the room to him and acting, once again, as though he could do no wrong. Even if Ianto wasn't bitter about him killing Lisa and interrupting his family time, he would still have strongly disagreed with that statement. Despite the amount that people seemed to forget it, he was probably the only one in the history of Torchwood Cardiff to have seen most of the archive.

"Hello sir," Ianto said when Jack eventually stood next to him. "Did you want something? This isn't exactly the place I would expect to see you."

"I could say the same about you," Jack nodded towards where the children were playing. "Not keeping something from me, are you Ianto?"

"Many things," Ianto answered smoothly. "Not least of which is the thing we both know you want from me the most. The brown haired twins in the ball pool are my nephews."

Ianto waved at them and they waved back, beaming as they chucked balls into the air.

"Good looking boys," Jack replied looking across at them.

"Jack, they're six. And don't even think of telling me some story about you and some twins on the edge of some galaxy somewhere."

Jack gasped. "Would I ever do that?"

"Yes. Slush puppie?" Ianto asked, standing up and moving towards the counter in a deliberate attempt to off-balance Jack.

"Two blue raspberry regular slush puppies and a portion of some of those fries please, Lucy. You know they're my weakness." Ianto ordered, smiling at the girl behind the counter with guileless eyes.

The girl served up their drinks with a practiced ease and started to shovel the freshly made fries onto a while polystyrene tray.

"So what's this guy doing here Ianto?" she asked. "Do you know him or something? And I've got to say: what's with the '40s war hero look?

Ianto laughed at Lucy's blunt questions, leaning over the counter towards her slightly as he took his fries from her. He took a bite of one before answering.

"Lucy, meet my boss, Captain Jack Harkness," Ianto answered, shaking some salt onto his fries before moving on to the red plastic tube of ketchup. "Jack, meet Lucy Davies, the love of many a young man's life. As for the outfit Lucy, I think he likes to think it makes him look like a real hero."

"I am a real hero!" Jack protested.

Lucy laughed, smiling at Ianto and all but ignoring Jack (who was definitely unused to the lack of attention). "Keep telling yourself that."

The two men made their way back to Ianto's table, with Ianto pausing every now and then to converse with a Mum or Dad about something trivial that bored Jack to a point where he almost considered leaving.

"What are you doing here Jack?" Ianto asked at long last.

"I came to check up on you. This is where I traced the signal of your phone to and I was curious."

"By that you mean you were told to come see me by Tosh, or even Gwen or Owen, and then were curious when you found out where I was. Oh and the Rift isn't doing anything today so you were stuck in your office doing paperwork."

"Well, yes," Jack answered after a slight pause.

"That's what I thought. Well, as you can see I'm perfectly fine. You can go now, report back. I don't want to have to do all that paperwork at a later date."

Jack opened his mouth to argue but really had nothing to say so he closed it again. It was true. In jeans and a t-shirt Ianto looked more than fine (and Jack meant that in both ways) and he would be the one doing all t he work then. Frowning, Jack finally nodded.

"Alright then, I'll go. Take care of yourself and call one of us if you need to talk about anything."

Ianto smiled at Jack as he left. Ten minutes later, once he had calmed down again, Aderyn entered through the same doors Jack had left by. _Lucky for Jack he didn't stick around 10 minutes more_, Ianto thought as he beckoned his sister over to join him.

-JIJIJI-

If he was honest with himself, Jack would have been forced to admit that he felt guilty about what he had said and done to Ianto on the night of Lisa's death. Luckily for Jack, he had spent such a long time lying about everything in his life that it wasn't at all difficult for him to lie to himself. No, Jack told himself, he certainly didn't feel guilty because Lisa had needed to be killed at whatever cost, he was simply...worried about whether Ianto would be able to keep working at Torchwood. There was absolutely no doubt about the fact he needed Ianto, the suspension had only proved how valuable his archivist was to Torchwood.

This was what Jack told himself as he walked up to a small semi-detached house in Cardiff suburbia. It was a reasonable sized house in a good (enough) area of Cardiff that, judging by the two shiny cars on the drive, clearly belonged to people with enough money. Jack would admit that in this tamed, middle-class area he looked slightly out of place his usual 1940s RAF uniform.

Knocking smartly on the door, he quickly thought over what he would say to whoever opened the door (he was going to play up the worried boss approach). For this reason he was surprised when the woman who opened the door seemed to know exactly who he was and seemed quite displeased to see him standing there.

"Hello," he tried anyway. "I'm Captain Jack Harkness, Ianto's boss, and I'm here to-"

"I know who you are Captain and from what I've heard you are only here to bother and upset him more. To be quite frank with you, you won't be taking a single step through the door. You aren't welcome here."

Jack looked quite affronted. "Look, I'm sorry buy I don't even know who you are, let alone what you are talking about."

"Aderyn Jones. Ianto's sister. I'm not pleased to meet you."

Jack took another look at the stern woman in front of him. Her hair was the same colour as Ianto's and curled into loose ringlets that rested on her shoulders softly. Her eyes and nose also looked similar to Ianto's but that was where the resemblance stopped. She had a cupid-bow mouth that would have looked pretty if she were not scowling furiously at Jack. She was petite, about Owen's height if not shorter, and had a curvy figure, her ample chest only amplified by her crossed arms underneath it. Jack's eyes lingered on this before his eyes rose to meet Aderyn's unamused stare.

"Oh yeah, you are definitely everything Ianto said you were."

Jack's right eyebrow rose at this. "Really? And what exactly did he say about me?"

"None of your goddamn business, _sir_," a voice said from behind Aderyn. "Let him in Aderyn."

Aderyn scowled at this but then moved aside to reveal her brother standing in a doorway further down the corridor, looking almost as displeased as his sister.

He smiled grimly at Jack. "Come meet the family."

-JIJIJI-

Aderyn's living room was not the most pleasant place that Jack could have been in – and that was not intended to be a comment on the interior design (unsurprisingly tasteful, apparently good taste ran in the family). The atmosphere in the room was stifling to say the least. Another word for it could be murderous anger directed straight towards him from various directions.

Ianto couldn't help but smirk while leading Jack into the room. Ianto had been on the end of his sister and brother-in-law's lag-team tactics before and he had only escaped by agreeing to half of Aderyn's demands. And he had grown up with Aderyn and had the ability to read the strong emotions of the people in the room.

"Captain, it is my absolute pleasure to introduce you to my brother-in-law, Gareth. Gareth, as I'm sure you've picked up by now, this is my boss."

Jack put on one of his trademark Harkness grins and offered his hand to Gareth. Even from Ianto's point of view it was easy to see the bone-crushing pressure that was going into Gareth's grip. It was pretty clear Aderyn had told him everything; their family had long since learnt not to keep secrets from each other. Oh yeah, Ianto thought, Jack was _so_ dead. It was a good thing he could always come back to life again.

Jack turned to smile tightly at Ianto once his hand was eventually released.

"It's a pleasure to meet the family I had no clue you had until last week. " He swivelled around to face Aderyn and Gareth. "I'm afraid to say that Ianto hasn't told me all about you. I would love to find out more though."

"I don't think that is necessary Jack. Now, what was it exactly that you wanted? The number for the dry cleaner who cleans your coat, perhaps? There's dried blood on the collar that you seem to have missed in your attempt to clean it."

Jack gritted his teeth. "I'm sure it can't be blood, although I could you that number. I really have no idea how I could have go blood on my collar."

"That is a wonder," Aderyn replied.

"I suppose," Gareth said slowly before Jack could react, "that it could have got there through some odd act like hunting aliens, getting killed or even some sexual acts but I don't know why you would have been doing any of those Captain Harkness."

"After all," Aderyn added, "you only work for the tourist board and if you had died you certainly wouldn't be standing here talking to us, would you?"

Aderyn and Gareth's cool, sarcastic tones made Jack freeze, completely tensed up.

"Ianto," he muttered out of the corner of his mouth. "Could I speak to you privately please?"

Ianto adopted his most accommodating smile, "Of course, sir, let's go through to the kitchen. You look as though you could use a coffee."

-JIJIJI-

Ianto could feel Jack's presence behind him as he moved to the coffee machine. Even after only seeing Jack twice in the past three weeks, Jack's scent and aura was as distinctive as ever. There was just something about him that made him completely unique. And it wasn't just the 51st century pheromones. Ianto began to make Jack's strong coffee with practiced ease while trying to work out how to explain why Aderyn and Gareth knew a tad too much about their Top Secret organisation. Although, with the way Jack swaggered in his greatcoat and the name on the SUV, Torchwood Cardiff was certainly the least secret 'Secret Organisation' around.

"Did you know," Ianto began, "that my family has lived in Cardiff for hundreds of years? There is a recurring phenomenon among families that have lived on the rift for a long time of increased psychic ability. Torchwood London was researching this phenomenon when the Ghost Shifts started."

Jack looked unamused as Ianto handed him his mug of coffee. "What are you trying to say? That you and your family are psychic?"

"Not exactly. I was a researcher on the project at Torchwood. They recruited me because I have low level empathic abilities amongst other skills. They aren't as much as they could be but they are certainly higher than the average 21st century human's. My sister is slightly psychic. And she can certainly tell when someone is lying to her. I never really had to option of not telling her about Torchwood once I started working there. All I could do was completely hide her from them. As far as Torchwood knows, I'm an only child."

"That was completely against protocol," Jack growled.

"You've never really held much for protocol, though, have you Jack? I know your record. You may have thought you deleted all record of it but I know the Archives better than even you do."

Jack suddenly grinned, an act which confused Ianto greatly. "God I'm glad I didn't execute or Retcon you. You're brilliant."

Ianto smiled slightly. "And I look good in a suit."

"And you look _great_ in a suit."

Jack finished off his coffee and moved close to Ianto to put the cup back on the counter behind him.

"You know, I really did just want to check on you. I was worried about you," he confided softly.

"I know."

Ianto smiled softly at Jack and moved past him, allowing his hand to brush the edge of Jack's as he went.

-JIJIJI-

Ianto moved back to his apartment two days before he was due to go back to work. It was good to be back on his own again, despite how happy he had been to spend time with Aderyn. He was nervous about the reaction his teammates would have to his going back to Torchwood. He could easily predict Tosh's compassionate and gentle sympathy but he knew that Owen already felt a lot of aggression towards him (and the rest of the world) and Gwen was the real wild card. For all that Jack went on about her bringing a more human side to the team; the only thing that Ianto personally though she added that showed her humanity was her unpredictability. For all she professed to love her boyfriend Rhys, she would happily cheat with either of the guys on the team (not including him, she had barely noticed him before). She just didn't understand any of the important aspects of Torchwood, had never seen what anyone else on the team had. She had never felt the loss that came from everyone else in the Hub in great waves. Even Myfanwy knew more about real life and loos in Torchwood than Gwen did. And the less said about her hero-worship of Jack the better.

It wasn't difficult to know how Jack would react- he head more than shown his regret and guilt over his actions on that night in the past few weeks. Still, Ianto had enjoyed what he thought was growing between him and Jack before Jack had discovered Lisa and he hoped that not all of their budding friendship. Still, Ianto thought the night before returning to the Hub as he prepared his suit for the day, what would happen would happen and there was no way that he could ever leave Torchwood now.


End file.
